[Church of Bob] [Church History] [The Liturgical Year] [Liturgy] [Saints] [Bobbies] [Robbis]
The central place is of course occupied by Bob's own writings and drawings (and
singings), as communicated by himself on his records and his live shows. Every Bobist
should own a copy of Lyrics or Writings and Drawings - preferably both.
The texts that are included in Lyrics are to be consdered the orthodox doctrine of
Bobism, because they have been given official approbation by Bob himself. The various
apocryphic texts that can be found on outtakes and on text sites such as The Book Of Bob, should
of course be read by the Bobists, but they are generally not considered to be
authoritative in the same degree as the official writings.
One should not either disregard the music. Even the chords can contain important information, as can be seen in this interpretation of Just Like A Woman, which is not really genuinely bobist, but for the lack of something better . . .
Bobspeak, i.e. raps between songs, band intros, "thanks everybody"s and the sermons He gave during the gospel tours, occupies a special place in the teachings of the shiites. They believe that every word that comes from the mouth of Bob, is true. See the discussion in the "Church History section".
There are four main Gospels, and once again the Precursors are remarkably accurate in
pinpointing the different character of the Gospels.
The Gospel of St Scaduto corresponds fairly well to the Gospel of Matthew in its
emphasis on references to the older scriptures, such as interviews etc.
The Gospel of St Spitz is echoed (in advance) of the Gospel of Mark in its emphasis
on action, funny anecdotes etc.
The Gospel of St Heylin is parallelled by St Luke by its comprehensivity, as well
as by the other writings conerning the Acts, both in studio and day to day.
And finally, the Gospel of St Shelton, written by the one of the evangelists who
was closest to Him hence being the most personal of the Gospels, just as the Gospel of St
John (the Evangelist).
In addition to these four Gospels, there are the important writings of St Paul (Williams), who, just as his precursor has not written a complete biography, but rather elaborates on and explicates selected topics and explains them to the Readers.
One might argue that it would be more proper to call it "Bospel", but for the sake of convenience we have maintained the old term. Etymologically the two words are similar: Gospel, from "Good spell", and Bospel from "Bob's spell", i.e. the captivating magic of His art.
Ideally the four main gospels (Scaduto, Shelton, Heylin and Spitz) and the pauline epistles (Performing Artist 1-2 etc) should be distributed throughout the church year. Selected passages (especially from the near-apocryphical Gospel of Spitz) may be omitted and replaced by more appropriate readings from other Scriptures (e.g. Wanted Man, articles from The Telegraph, Isis etc.) For instance, on March 22 the reading should be from the interview with Charlie Quintano who played drums at the Letterman show performance.
It appears clearly from the sources that Dylan usually used just any kind of paper to write on: napkins, hotel bills, note books etc., so the Scriptures should also be written on just any kind of paper. It is essential, however, that one use paper that is just any kind of paper in exactly the same way as Dylan's. This may be difficult to accomplish, since authentic napkins from e.g. Cafe Wha? are hard to find these days, and in cases when this specific kind of just any kind of paper is not available, it may be permissible to use ordinary paper.